Press

This March and April, Claremont’s OBJCT Gallery will host an impressive collection of local mid-century art and architecture. The crafts, paintings, furniture, buildings and designs featured in the exhibit all date from the post-war era, reflecting the modernist sensibilities evident in both local art and architecture of the period.

“Claremont was this little pocket of culture,” said David Shearer, who, along with Louie Rios, is curator of OBJCT’s Modernism exhibition. “There’s so much good art and design and architecture that came out of this little foothill community, especially within the mid-century.” Shearer hopes the exhibit will draw attention to the fact that a great deal of modernist architecture and art, all emblematic of the post-war aesthetic that is both multi-disciplinary and uniquely Californian, has emerged from Claremont.

“There’s a whole California vernacular that kind of happened in architecture, and so much of that architecture existed around Claremont,” Shearer, who runs a second gallery in Pomona, said. “Indoors and outdoors became one. Not only did some of the major architects of the time do work here, but local architects were doing work as well.”

The creativity and style within the local movement extended to artists as well, and Shearer decided there was a need for an exhibition which reflected the communal nature of these works. “I don’t think anybody’s done a show that surveys the whole culture that was happening at that time – architecture, design, craft, art, furniture, ceramics, painting,” he said. “It was a real arts community, it did influence a lot of other artists and was recognized around the world.”

Local artists featured in Claremont Modernism include painter Karl Benjamin, craftsman Sam Maloof, and ceramicist Harrison McIntosh. Architects whose plans, prints, and photographed buildings are displayed include both Claremont natives – among them Fred McDowell, Theodore Criley, and Foster Rhodes Jackson – and famed non-natives like Richard Neutra and Edward Durell Stone, who designed homes and buildings which still stand in Claremont today.

OBJCT Gallery, located inside the Packing House on First Street, houses a generous and varied collection of their sculptures, paintings, photographs, designs, furniture, ceramics, and woodwork. At the exhibition’s entrance is a magnificent Karl Benjamin painting (#13), which features many small geometric shapes against a vibrant purple backdrop. Benjamin, a self-taught artist whose paintings are often considered the apotheosis of hard-edged modernism, was inspired to begin painting while he taught art to elementary school students. Claremont Modernism features many of Benjamin’s paintings, one of which is hung in an exhibit that simulates a real living room. Shearer said this exhibit, which also includes furniture by Sam Maloof and an owl sculpture by Albert Stewart, is modeled after Maloof’s own home.

Claremont Modernism offers several other exhibits reminiscent of living rooms, the most impressive of which is an installation by Roland Reiss. Made entirely of MDF (medium-density fibreboard), “The Castle of Perseverance” was set up in the Packing House more than thirty years ago by the Pomona professor and a number of his students. The mock-room includes sofas, lamps, a coffee table, a bar, a TV dinner, toys, cigarettes, an aquarium, and much more, and is impossible to revisit without discovering an object overlooked on the first viewing. All but the fireplace, which was damaged in storage, have been installed in their original order.

The exhibition also boasts remarkable stand-alone works – Paul Soldner’s untitled, heavily-textured ceramic piece, Aldo Casanova’s starkly intimidating Ritual Object, Betty Davenport Ford’s ceramic bear – as well as plenty of furniture, photographs and plans. Claremont Modernism will offer a film series, an architecture tour, and artists coming to speak about their work.

The houses and buildings featured at OBJCT are familiar ones, with noteworthy histories – Edward Durell Stone designed the Claremont School of Theology’s chapel; Criley & McDowell’s firm built the Claremont Community Church and many twentieth-century homes (including Karl Benjamin’s).

Shearer hopes that the photos of these interiors and exteriors will be recognized and newly-valued in a way that surpasses their function as buildings. “People appreciate what they have in this community,” he said. “These cultural resources really make Claremont what it is, and should be preserved.”

Claremont Modernism will be at OBJCT Gallery in the Packing House from March 5-April 25, Tuesday-Saturday 11-6 PM and Sunday 12-5 PM.

Inland Empire Weekly Issure 51•March 25 2010

Culture Club Section

Objct Gallery’s Claremont Modernism – Modernist Mecca

Shines a spotlight on Claremont’s finest artisans.

By Stacy Davies

The Claremont Museum of Art may be on hiatus, but the space it formerly occupied in the historic Claremont Packing House continues to thrive—and co-curators David Shearer and Louie Rios have unleashed a sophisticated locally-driven modernist show that is truly an iconic vision to be seen.

Shearer owns Objct Gallery, a modest space in Pomona’s Art Colony that is home to innovative exhibits like the new show “Technorganic” (“where theory meets spontaneous combustion . . . where nature and human intervention collide”), but with this tangent exhibit at what he calls Objct Claremont, he and mid-century collector Rios clearly needed many more rooms to house the extensive array of Claremont-based modernism they’ve managed to pull together.

The pieces in the front gallery space—formerly the museum gift shop—are not part of the actual show, yet already they jet you back into the 1960s with Eames chairs, copper enamel ashtrays and prolific paintings by our own prestigious modernist-inspired IE resident, Alex Couwenberg. Walk further on through the exhibit to find various alcoves that pay homage to a ground-breaking artistry that defined the modernist era in craft, design, art and architecture—and realize you’re living among greatness.

The first alcove off the Objct Claremont space is set with a combination of vintage and more recent artifacts: a sleek, teak Danish credenza from the 1970s and chairs from Bjorn Dahlstrom (molded oak/plywood with striped green-blue-tan textile pad) from 1996. Backed by Ross Menuez’s felt and wood screen from 1987, the pieces bring out the bold black and beige strokes of Paul Darrow’s #3 Citadel oil from 1961 at their adjacent. Below this grand creation sits more Danish fare—“nesting tables” and requisite copper ashtray—and along the wall, Sean Nolan’s soft pink and blue vapory photos of James Turrell’s Skyspace Light installation at Pomona College lead us out and into more minimalist history.

The next room opens up grandly on local artisan Sam Maloof, with his spectacular hand-carved chaise built in the 1960s displayed on pedestal, a pristine work of functional art that is the embodiment of all the master-craftsman’s precise and delicate creations. Other Maloof pieces are included, as well as a few striking black and white images of the man at work and in repose. Around the corner, Aldo Casanova’s monolithic cast bronze Ritual Object is gorgeously un-phallic (a nice change), and further on, Karl Benjamin takes over the space with his geometric oils in a blaze of kaleidoscopic color.

Focusing on the profound impact modernist architects such as Theodore Criley, Fred McDowell and Richard Neutra had on Claremont, curators Shearer and Rios lead us to archival photos and watercolors of local churches, residences and buildings of the prestigious Claremont Colleges that felt their hand—a keen move that allows us to place the pieces we’ve just seen into their synonymous landscapes of the past. A standout piece among the images is John Edward Svenson’s bronze,St. Francis Study—a beautifully angular take on the oft-immortalized saint.

The pièce de résistance, however—both of them—are the final rooms that recreate actual Modern living spaces. The first is a setting filled with furniture by Maloof, paintings by Darrow and Benjamin, and decorative art objects by Albert Stewart and Bob Stocksdale (Stewart’s sublime stone owl would have certainly walked out with me if it could have). But the next room is mind-twisting, if not mind-blowing: Roland Reiss’ 1978 installation take on the morality play, The Castle of Perseverance, comes to life in the form of a full-scale living room and wet bar with myriad household items dotting the domestic terrain—and all of it made from MDF particle board. Let your eyes wander and find the treasures that await: cups and saucers, and tumblers waiting for booze; slices of cake and Salisbury steak TV dinners; mysterious stacks of slides, a gun and a key to someone’s door; Band-Aids, records and a forgotten hamburger lodged between books on a shelf. There’s even an aquarium with woody little fish and a cat’s litter box—clean, since no wooden feline appears to be lurking about.

In short, it’s a spectacular show—with many more artists to see such as CGU alum Rupert Deese and world-renowned Scripps alum Betty Davenport Ford—and whether one calls Claremont home or not, any observer will not only find their creative impulses stirring as they walk through this majesty, but will also, hopefully, be reminded that where we live and what we sit on can have meaning and beauty. And, in fact, it really should.